India’s Renewed Focus on Indian Ocean Region

• 04 Dec 2025

This editorial is based on “A template for security cooperation in the Indian Ocean” which was published in The Hindu on 03/12/2025. The article brings into light India’s renewed efforts to shape a cooperative security framework in the Indian Ocean through the expanding Colombo Security Conclave. Yet it also highlights how divergent threat perceptions, especially on China, and regional uncertainties demand stronger institutional cohesion for India’s strategic stakes.

For Prelims: Colombo Security Conclave, Indian Ocean Region, Operation Sagar Bandhu, International Seabed Authority,  Samudrayaan Mission, Operation Sankalp, Strait of Hormuz,  "Neighbourhood First" policy , INS Aridhaman, Exclusive Economic Zones.  

For Mains: Significance of Indian Ocean Region for India, Key Challenges that Confront India in the Indian Ocean Region.

The 7^th NSA-level Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) summit in 2025 highlights India’s renewed push to shape the emerging security architecture of the Indian Ocean Region. What began as a stalled trilateral in 2011 has now evolved into an expanded platform addressing maritime security, counter-terrorism, trafficking, and cybersecurity. As new members like Seychelles join, the CSC signals growing regional appetite for cooperative security. Yet differing priorities and domestic uncertainties among regional players keep the security architecture fluid and unpredictable. For India, these shifts reaffirm the centrality of the Indian Ocean Region to its economic security, strategic autonomy, and role as a net security provider in the region. 

How does the Indian Ocean Shape India’s Strategic Interests? 

• Geopolitical Leadership & Regional Cohesion: India anchors its "Neighbourhood First" policy here to counter extra-regional influence (China) by institutionalizing security architectures that bind littoral states together.  
  • This shifts India from a passive observer to an active "norm-builder" for regional stability. 
  • In November 2025, India hosted the 7th Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) where Seychelles joined as a full member, solidifying a 6-nation security bloc to counter Chinese naval entrenchment. 
• Role as "Net Security Provider" & First Responder: The region acts as a testing ground for India's humanitarian diplomacy, where rapid disaster response builds immense "strategic trust" and soft power that outpaces rival financial checkbook diplomacy. 
  • For instance, recently India launched "Operation Sagar Bandhu", deploying INS Vikrant, INS Udaygiri and air assets to flood-hit Sri Lanka, while others were still deliberating aid. 
• Strategic Connectivity & Central Asian Access: Bypassing hostile land borders, the ocean provides the only viable corridor to access resource-rich Central Asia and Afghanistan, creating an alternative trade artery to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 
  • For instance, India secured a crucial US sanction waiver (November 2025) for Chabahar Port after signing a historic 10-year operation pact (May 2024), ensuring unhindered trade flows despite geopolitical friction. 
• Blue Economy & Deep-Sea Resource Rights: The seabed offers a strategic reserve of Poly-Metallic Nodules (PMN) and sulphides, essential for India's transition to clean energy (EV batteries), reducing dependency on Chinese mineral monopolies. 
  • India signed a landmark 15-year contract with the International Seabed Authority (September 2025) for mining rights in the Carlsberg Ridge, unlocking potential access to copper and zinc deposits. 
• Technological Frontier & Scientific Prestige: Mastering deep-ocean technology places India in an elite club of nations, signaling technological prowess that translates into hard military capability for submarine warfare and underwater surveillance. 
  • The Samudrayaan Mission advanced with Matsya-6000 prototypes undergoing 500m depth qualification trials backed by a ₹4,077 crore budget to achieve manned deep-sea capability by 2026. 
• Energy Security & SLOC Protection: The ocean is the jugular of the Indian economy, hosting the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) through which nearly all energy imports flow, choking these points would paralyze the nation's industrial engine. 
  • More than two-thirds of India’s crude oil imports and nearly 50% of its LNG imports flow through the Strait of Hormuz, making it a vital route for our energy security. 
  • Operation Sankalp was launched by the Indian Navy to protect Indian merchant vessels sailing through the Strait of Hormuz and other high-risk zones in the Persian Gulf. 

What Key Challenges Confront India in the Indian Ocean Region? 

• "Grey-Zone" Warfare & Scientific Espionage: China has institutionalized the use of "civilian" research vessels to map the Indian Ocean seabed (bathymetric data), creating a submarine "highway" for future PLA-Navy deployments under the guise of scientific research, which legal frameworks like UNCLOS fail to adequately restrict. 
  • Recently, a swarm of 4 Chinese vessels entered the IOR just as India issued a NOTAM for a missile test (which was later postponed by India), actively gathering acoustic signatures of India's strategic assets. 
• The "Pendulum Politics" of Littoral States: India’s "Neighbourhood First" policy faces a structural challenge where smaller island nations leverage the "China Card" to extract concessions, oscillating between "India First" and "India Out" regimes, making long-term strategic alignment volatile and expensive. 
  • The "pendulum" swung sharply when the Maldives, facing sovereign default after a pro-China drift, pivoted back to India. 
  • India has extended support of 400 million dollars and a bilateral currency swap of 3,000 crore rupees to the Maldives, effectively neutralizing an earlier defense pact Male had signed with Beijing.  
• Subsurface Nuclear Rivalry & Second-Strike Stability: The IOR is transitioning into a "nuclear-distinct" theater, as China deploys advanced SSBNs (nuclear-armed submarines) for continuous deterrence patrols, India faces the pressure to rapidly mature its own triad to prevent a "credibility gap" in its second-strike capability. 
  • Countering the threat of China’s quieter Type 096 submarines, India accelerated the sea trials of INS Aridhaman, aiming to commission its third SSBN to ensure continuous underwater deterrence. 
• Weaponization of "Dual-Use" Infrastructure: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) ports are shedding their commercial veneer to become de-facto logistics bases, these "civilian" facilities provide the PLA Navy with repair, replenishment, and intelligence capabilities without the diplomatic cost of a formal military base. 
  • Recent reports confirmed expanded "logistics facilities" at Kyaukphyu (Myanmar) and Gwadar (Pakistan), capable of docking aircraft carriers, effectively flanking India’s Andaman & Nicobar Command from both east and west. 
• Illegal Unregulated (IUU) Fishing & Resource Plunder: Industrial-scale Chinese distant-water fishing fleets are depleting Tuna stocks and violating the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of littoral states, threatening the region's food security and creating friction points that could trigger localized naval skirmishes. 
  • Satellite data from 2025 revealed over 600 Chinese trawlers operating annually in the Western Indian Ocean, often "going dark" (AIS off) to plunder stocks, prompting India to enhance Information Fusion Centre (IFC-IOR) monitoring. 
    • Alongside large-scale Chinese trawlers, India also faces an intensifying fisheries dispute with Sri Lanka in the Palk Bay. 
• Infrastructure Vulnerability to Climate Change: Rising sea levels threaten the very existence of key island partners (Maldives, Seychelles), creating a "climate security" dilemma where India must prepare for mass migration crises and the loss of strategic radar stations located on low-lying atolls. 
  • For instance, Maldives has the lowest terrain in the world with more than 80 per cent of its islands being less than 1M above the mean sea level. 
  • Within India too, strategic maritime infrastructure is at risk, several installations in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and naval airfields such as INS Baaz (Campbell Bay) lie in zones highly vulnerable to coastal erosion and storm surges, endangering both military readiness and regional surveillance capabilities.

What Steps Can India Take to Safeguard Its Strategic Interests in the Indian Ocean Region? 

• Strengthening SAGAR & Developmental Security: India can deepen its SAGAR vision by prioritising capacity-building assistance such as patrol vessels, coastal radar networks, and disaster-response systems for IOR nations.  
  • Development-led security, through Lines of Credit for ports, renewable energy grids, and fisheries, helps build trust with smaller island states.  
  • By reducing their dependence on external powers, India strengthens a stable, India-centric security environment.  
    • This also reinforces the Neighbourhood First policy. Collectively, it enhances India’s role as a net security provider. 
• Institutionalizing "Minilateral" Security Architectures: Instead of relying solely on broad consensus forums, India should cement the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) into a formal treaty-based organization with a permanent secretariat and dedicated budget. 
  • This creates a "coalition of the willing" for rapid intelligence sharing and joint patrols, effectively insulating the region’s security architecture from extra-regional vetoes while binding smaller neighbors into a tight, India-led maritime interoperability framework. 
• Pan-Regional Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA): To counter the "sub-surface encirclement" of hostile submarines, India must aggressively deploy a Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) chain across the Indian Ocean seabed, partnering with friendly littorals to host hydro-acoustic sensors. 
  • This shifts the focus from visible surface policing to "transparent ocean" capabilities, ensuring that no silent adversary can map the thermal layers of the Indian Ocean without being tracked, targeted, and deterred in real-time. 
• "Digital Ocean" & Critical Infrastructure Shield: India needs to spearhead a new "Submarine Cable Security Protocol" for the IOR, treating undersea data cables as critical sovereign assets equivalent to borders. 
  • By deploying autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to patrol these digital lifelines and offering "security guarantees" for the cables of smaller island nations, India can prevent "data hostage" scenarios and position itself as the guarantor of the region's digital sovereignty against hybrid sabotage. 
• Deep-Sea "Blue Economy" Integration: India must operationalize its deep-sea mining exploration licenses to create an "IOR Rare Earths Supply Chain," offering littoral states technology transfers for sustainable resource extraction. 
  • This economic integration offers a viable, transparent alternative to predatory extractive models, securing India's access to critical minerals like cobalt and nickel while weaving the region's economic future tightly with India's industrial growth engine. 
• Normative "Lawfare" & Hydrographic Diplomacy: As the upcoming chair of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), India should establish a "Code of Conduct for Marine Scientific Research," explicitly banning "dual-use" military surveys disguised as civilian science. 
  • By standardizing the legal norms for hydrographic data collection and offering its own survey capabilities to neighbors, India can legally delegitimize foreign spy vessels and reclaim the narrative on "scientific transparency" in the region. 
• Maritime Infrastructure & Strategic Islands Development: Accelerating Sagarmala and coastal logistics improves India’s maritime competitiveness and trade integration. 
  • The Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands hold immense strategic value and can serve as dual-use hubs for defence, tourism, and connectivity. 
  • Upgraded island infrastructure enhances surveillance and rapid-response capacities.  
    • This also promotes economic development among local communities. Overall, strong maritime infrastructure amplifies India’s strategic depth in the IOR.

Conclusion:

India’s strategic stakes in the Indian Ocean Region have never been higher, with the CSC emerging as a pivotal platform shaping a cooperative security order. As great-power competition deepens, India must combine hard maritime capability with developmental partnerships to retain strategic trust. Strengthening minilateral frameworks, technological dominance, and climate-resilient infrastructure will be key to safeguarding its interests.

Drishti Mains Question:

“India’s strategic ambitions in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) now hinge as much on developmental partnerships and minilateral frameworks as on traditional maritime power.” Discuss this statement in the context of emerging security challenges and India’s evolving role as a net security provider.

FAQs: 

1. Why is the Indian Ocean Region crucial for India’s national security?
The IOR is vital because it hosts major Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) that carry India’s energy imports, trade routes, and naval operations. It also shapes India’s strategic autonomy and regional influence.

2. What is the Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) and why does it matter?
The CSC is a regional security grouping led by India that focuses on maritime security, counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, and trafficking. It strengthens India-centric cooperation and counters external military influence in the IOR.

3. How is China challenging India in the Indian Ocean Region?
China uses grey-zone tactics, dual-use ports, research vessels for seabed mapping, IUU fishing, and submarine deployments to shape a long-term strategic presence, threatening India’s maritime dominance.

4. What role does India’s “Neighbourhood First” policy play in the IOR?
It anchors diplomatic, developmental, and security partnerships with island nations, ensuring regional stability while preventing smaller states from drifting into dependency on external powers.

5. How is India strengthening its maritime capabilities in the IOR?
India is modernizing its Navy, expanding surveillance networks, operationalizing deep-sea missions (Samudrayaan), securing SLOCs through missions like Operation Sankalp, and enhancing underwater domain awareness across the region.

UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Question (PYQ) 

Prelims

Q. India is a member of which among the following? (2015)

1. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation  
2. Association of South-East Asian Nations  
3. East Asia Summit  

Select the correct answer using the code given below: 

(a) 1 and 2 only  

(b) 3 only  

(c) 1, 2 and 3   

(d) India is a member of none of them  

Ans: (b) 

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Mains 

Q.1 What is the significance of Indo-US defense deals over Indo-Russian defense deals? Discuss with reference to stability in the Indo-Pacific region.  (2020)